1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to the Internet. More specifically, the present invention relates to the field web browsers.
2. Background Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely sophisticated devices that may be found in many different settings. Computer systems typically include a combination of hardware (e.g., semiconductors, circuit boards, etc.) and software (e.g., computer programs). As advances in semiconductor processing and computer architecture push the performance of the computer hardware higher, more sophisticated computer software has evolved to take advantage of the higher performance of the hardware, resulting in computer systems today that are much more powerful that just a few years ago.
Other changes in technology have also profoundly affected how we use computers. For example, this widespread proliferation prompted the development of computer networks that allow computers to communicate with each other. With the introduction of the personal computer (PC), computing became accessible to large numbers of people. Networks for personal computers were developed to allow individual users to communicate with each other. In this manner, a large number of people within a company could communicate at the same time with a software application running on one computer system.
One significant computer network that has recently become very popular is the Internet. The Internet grew out of the modern proliferation of computers and networks, and has evolved into a sophisticated worldwide network of computer systems linked together that collectively make up the “world-wide web”, or WWW. A user at an individual PC or workstation that wishes to access the WWW, typically does so using a software application known as a web browser. Web browsers communicate with computer systems called web servers. The communication between web browsers and web servers can be done according to any of several Internet protocols (e.g., hypertext transfer protocol (http); file transfer protocol (ftp); Internet Inter-Orb Protocol (IIOP).
Information transmitted from the web server to the web browser is generally formatted using a specialized language called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML is a language that describes the structure of a document in a standard way that web browsers are able to understand and interpret. An HTML document stored on a web server, commonly called a “web page,” can thus be downloaded by any web browser and displayed on the client machine. HTML allows web pages to be linked together using hypertext. Hypertext is a method of organizing text, graphics and other kinds of data that lets individual data elements point to one another. Thus, by using hypertext to link pages together web client users can selectively view pages that interest them.
Many web pages use extensive graphics and other “components” to dress up their web page, where components are defined in this patent to be any additional items referenced in HTML documents. These components are included in an HTML document through the use of specialized tags. For example, the image tag <IMG> is used to insert a graphics image that is a component in the HTML document. Likewise, the applet tag <Applet> is used to insert an applet, a small program designed to be downloaded and run on the web client, into the HTML document.
When the web browser requests a page, the HTML document is first downloaded to the browser. The web browser then automatically requests the various components that are referenced in the HTML document. The server then downloads the components to the web browser so that the web browser can then display the completed web page to the user. This process happens automatically and without the web client user having any control over the process.
In many cases, the extra components are not of interest to a particular web client user. For example, a component may comprise a graphics image advertisement for a product that does not interest the user. In another case, the component may comprise an applet which performs a function that the user does not need or want to be performed. A component could also comprise a form that the user does not need or wish to have. In all of these cases, the components comprise items which the user does not desire to download.
Furthermore, these undesirable components can be very large. A typical graphics image file could comprise hundreds of kilobytes. Downloading such unwanted graphics files may take considerable time to download depending on the users method of access to the Internet. During this time the user may be unable to proceed and is forced to wait for all the components to download. Thus, many users are forced to spend valuable time waiting for all components to download to their web browser before they can proceed with whatever task they have.
Without an improved browser, web client users will have to continue to wait for the download of each and every unwanted component before being able to proceed with what they want to do. It is easy to see that this situation is undesirable from the perspective of the web browser user.